Northern Crush Wellington

After a close win yesterday against Canterbury, Northern have won with a degree of ease against Wellington in the Provincial A tournament today.

Northern opted to bat first and had success early as opener Mitchell Santner played nicely to make 61 from 78 deliveries. It was considerably better than veteran James Marshall who was dismissed for a golden duck.

Brook Hatwell (39) and Daryl Mitchell (49) then put on an important partnership for ND to make sure that they stayed on track and posted a competitive score.

The middle order continued to fire when Jono Boult came in and made sure that Wellington would have their work cut out for them as he made a quick 54 from 39 deliveries.

Brandon Hiini added 19 to help Northern reach 268 before being all out after 49.1 overs.

Ronald Karaitiana was the pick of the bowlers for Wellington and ended with figures of three for 39 from 7.1 overs.

In reply Wellington were in pieces early and found themselves reeling at three for 20. Thankfully for them though their middle order did a lot better, as Barry Rhodes (26) and Tom Blundell (27) steadied the ship.

Unfortunately neither of them could convert their starts into bigger scores and Wellington had another collapse to find themselves at 113 for nine.

Mark Houghton remained at the crease and was joined by number 11 batsmen Andrew Lamb. They were never going to win it, but the pair might have shown the rest of their team how to do it as the two made 51 for the tenth wicket and Lamb top scored with 37.

In the end it would never be enough and Lamb was dismissed in the 38th over to hand Northern a 104 run win.

Anurag Verma finished it off for Northern having bowled well all innings and collecting figures of three for 29 from 6.2 overs.